


Staring at the Sea

by jncar



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, domestic angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 13:51:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2194152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jncar/pseuds/jncar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She has true love. She should be happier than she's ever been. Some days, she is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Staring at the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this before the end of season 3 and posted it in my Tumblr (mediumsizedfountain), and it has since become one of my most popular fics on Tumblr. But when I noticed a few new notes on it today I realized that for some reason I never posted it here, so people not on Tumblr probably haven't seen it yet. So here it is.

Emma forces a smile when he comes home after his day-long disappearance with a nice bottle of wine and a few long-stemmed roses.

He smells like the sea. His smile is a little too bright, his laughs a little too loud, and the way he can't stop touching her doesn't excite her like it should—it makes her worry, even more, that he's overcompensating.

He's trying to prove that he's still in this as much as she is.

But she knows, deep down in that corner of her mind that whispers of old abandonments and life-long loneliness, that somehow, once again, she isn't good enough to keep him.

~ ~ ~

It's been just over five months.

Five months of peace. Five months of no curses, no villains, no invasions, no portals. Five months of restored memories. Five months of family. Five months as a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend. Five months of _him_.

Five months of heated kisses stolen around corners, in her car and behind her closed office door because they can't stop themselves. They have to make up for lost time. (So much lost time—so many missed chances.) Five months of getting used to the glorious sensation of the way he stretches and fills her, his sweaty skin pressing against hers, his hips moving sometimes with aching, teasing slowness, sometimes with the fire and frenzy built up by over a year of longing and need. Five months of learning to love the way he leans back in his chair and watches her as she struts around air-drying after a shower—of memorizing the sound of his sleeping breath while he lies beside her every night—of learning to laugh together every single day and loving him all the more for his obnoxious jokes and exaggerated disdain for certain modern technologies.

She has true love. She should be happier than she's ever been.

Some days, she is.

But then he vanishes, again, and the old worries whisper louder in her ears, and all the smiles and kisses and long-stem roses in the world can't banish them.

~ ~ ~

It started just a month after they returned triumphant from defeating Zelena once and for all. Just two weeks after moving into their own apartment down the street from her parents to give David and Mary Margaret a little privacy with her new baby brother (and to escape the nighttime crying).

She woke one morning to find him gone. His side of the bed vacant and cold—his old leather coat gone from the rack by the door, and his new phone (the one he still hadn't gotten used to using) sitting on the counter.

She'd expected him to return any minute with coffee and donuts. But minutes turned into hours.

Panic grew in her chest all day, but who could she call? He was a grown man. He knew how to take care of himself. There were no new villains in town (that she knew of).

Finally, at Granny's for lunch, Leroy mentioned running into Killian down by the docks. "Why didn't he join you for lunch, sister?"

Emma just shook her head and made an excuse about Killian having errands to run.

Leroy didn't seem to buy it, but, for once, he let it go.

After picking at her cheeseburger for a few more minutes she abandoned it to go drive by the docks.

Sure enough, there he was, leaning against a railing, staring out to sea.

For a minute she wanted to jump out of her car and storm over to him. To yell, "What the hell are you doing? Where have you been all morning? I was worried sick."

But she didn't want to be one of _those_ women. She values her independence, and he values his.

She left him alone, and a little after dusk he came home with cupcakes and chocolate milk and a smiling query about how her day went.

When she finally asked him what he'd been up to, he merely shrugged. "I needed some air. Thought I'd spend the day outdoors." He left it at that, and she didn't pry.

She wasn't one of _those_ women.

She had true love. She wouldn't screw it up. Not this time.

~ ~ ~

He didn't disappear again for three weeks, after that first time.

The second time, he woke her when he muttered in his sleep. He tossed and turned and wore a pained frown on his face.

Emma rubbed his arm until he calmed down and seemed to fall back into a peaceful slumber. But when she woke again in the morning, he was gone.

She worked that day, and cruised by the docks several times.

He was always there, by his favorite railing, watching the fishing boats come and go.

That night he brought home daisies and whiskey.

She didn't nag. She let him have his space.

She also became a lighter sleeper.

~ ~ ~

He's been disappearing nearly every other week since. Always just for one day. And he's always home around dinner time with gifts and smiles and extra affection, always smelling like the sea.

She notices him leaving, now, but pretends to sleep.

She won't nag. She won't complain. She won't do anything to make things worse (though in her heart she knows she must already be doing something wrong).

~ ~ ~

"I think he still misses his ship," she confesses to her mother a few days after his latest disappearance.

"Well, of course he does," says Mary Margaret as she burps little Evan. "That ship was his home for three centuries. It's only natural that he misses it. That doesn't mean he's not happy with his life here with you."

Her words don't make Emma feel any better.

~ ~ ~

She tries to be more affectionate—even in public, though it makes her uncomfortable. She forces herself to be more sexually aggressive, seducing him in the office at lunch time—sneaking away from a large family dinner for a quickie in the bathroom—sex sometimes two or three times a day. Anything to prove to him how much she loves him. To show him how much she wants this to work.

He seems to love it. He laughs more than ever and grins whenever he's around her. He spends a lot of time with Henry and David, just like part of the family. He seems happy. He seems content.

But a week later he vanishes again.

Emma no longer bothers driving by the docks. She can always smell the sea on him when he gets home. She knows where he's been.

~ ~ ~

Regina only scoffs and rolls her eyes when Emma makes a vague mention of her worries at their weekly coffee date.

"You have nothing to worry about. I've never seen a man more hopelessly besotted than your pirate."

Emma grips her cup a little tighter. "Well, he usually seems happy. But there are days, every few weeks, when he just—I don't know. Forget it."

Regina shrugs. "Men need their space sometimes. Let him have it. You'll be happier in the long run for it," and then turns the conversation elsewhere.

Emma kisses him with hungry abandon that night, straddling and riding him until they are both panting with exhaustion and release. She snuggles down against his chest as he strokes her hair.

"Gods, I love you," he whispers, and places a kiss on her temple. "I love you so much."

"I love you, too," she says, and then bites her lip, not able to lift her head and meet his eyes.

If he loves her so much, why does he keep leaving? Why does he always stare at the sea?

The dark whispers in her mind tell her that maybe loving her isn't enough.

The sea is in his blood.

Maybe one day it will carry him away, and she won't be able to stop him.

~ ~ ~

She feels more than a little embarrassed turning to Gold for help. He's honestly the last person in town that she wants to share her relationship troubles with.

But, given his history, he's the one most likely to understand.

He raises his eyebrow when she pulls him into a corner of his shop and starts murmuring her worries just above a whisper, but he doesn't mock (thank god).

"I just feel like he misses his old life, too much. I feel like I'm losing him—like…" she pauses, swallowing hard before confessing her deepest fear, "like I'm not enough for him. Like he wants something more."

Instead of smirking at her, like she feared, Gold nods slowly.

He's changed, since his return. He's more somber. More gentle. Otherwise she never would have dared this conversation in the first place.

"He doesn't stare at the sea because you're not enough for him, dearie," says Gold, a surprisingly kind tone in his voice. "He stares at the sea because he's convinced that he's not enough for _you_ , and he's sure that sooner or later the sea will be all he has left."

Emma's eyes go wide and her heart skips a beat. "I… do you really think so?"

"I know so," he replies, his eyes flicking to back room where Belle is working.

Emma never considered this possibility—not even once. But now that she's heard it, no other explanation seems to fit.

She keeps silent for a minute as her mind reviews all of Killian's disappearances, one by one. The first came a few days after talking about getting him a real job in town, since following her around all day didn't officially count. The second came a day after a run-in with his old pal Smee. As she goes down the list, all his disappearances happened within a couple of days of other such events—events that reminded him of his past, or ones that made him feel inadequate for the life he seeks to build here.

"I think you might be right," Emma whispers. The knowledge of what she's been missing sits like an anchor on her chest. She should have seen it. She should have realized.

Gold nods. "I expect that I am. I have a little experience with feeling unworthy of the woman who's chosen to love me."

He smiles, but she can see the pain etched on his face. The same sort of pain she glimpses from time to time on Killian's face, but which she never fully understood.

"What do I do? How do I help him get over this?" she asks.

Gold shakes his head. "I'm not sure if you ever can. Not fully."

"But I have to do _something_ ," she insists.

"Never give up on him," says Gold softly, looking down at his hands clasped over the head of his cane. "Have patience. Have faith. Have forgiveness. Have hope. And never give up." She sees his Adam's apple bob and he glances back toward the workroom and Belle, again.

Emma nods. 

She wanted a problem with a simple solution. One that will work overnight and make all her troubles go away.

But this isn't that sort of problem. 

"Thank you," she whispers.

~ ~ ~

Emma still has to remind herself that she doesn't have to fight for Killian's love. She already has it. She has nothing to prove. (The dark whispers still nag her with doubts, but she's learning to ignore them.)

When he tells her he loves her (daily and often) she lets herself believe him. She makes sure she always tells him the same in return.

The next time she feels him stirring in the night, she doesn't pretend to be asleep. She wraps an arm around him and kisses his shoulder. "Stay," she whispers.

He does.

But he wears a forced smile all through breakfast and shortly after breakfast he pulls on his leather coat, saying he needs some air, and steps out. He leaves his phone behind. 

She knows where he'll be.

At lunchtime she heads down to the docks.

This time she gets out of her car.

He raises his eyebrows in surprise when she strolls up to him, a smile on her face. She holds up a brown paper sack. "I thought you might be hungry. I packed you a sandwich and some of those Doritos you like so much."

He smiles—a hopeful look emerging from behind his lost-looking eyes. "Not bologna, I hope?"

She shakes her head. "Turkey and mustard on rye."

He takes the bag, his fingers lingering against hers. "That was very thoughtful of you, love. Thank you."

"No problem. I'll see you at dinner?" She tries to sound neutral. Tries to sound like she's not pleading.

He nods. "Aye. I'll be home."

"Good." She leans forward and kisses his cheek. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

She bites her lip as she walks back to her car and tries not to look back. He needs his space. But he also needs to know that he is loved—that he has a home. Forever.

This is just a first step. But she hopes it's a good one.

He's home at dinnertime with a bouquet of tulips.

She smiles and puts them in a vase as he sits down to share the meal with her and Henry wearing a smile on his face.

This is home. This is true love.

It won't be easy, but she won't give up.

Some things are worth the effort.


End file.
